Amber and Willem Read online

  ​Pattan was the oldest person in the company, although nobody knew exactly how old she was. She was a tiny woman, light as air, and she was the best skywalker anyone had ever heard of.

  ​“Do what you are doing now,” Pattan said. “Balance.”

  Chapter Ten: Dariel

  “Don’t you know anything?” Grider roared.

  ​Willem supposed he didn’t, for it seemed he had made the beds for the visiting horses wrong. “I’ll do them again,” he said.

  ​“Yes you will,” said Grider, “and you’ll do it right this time!” He stumped away without further explanation.

  ​Grider was horse-master at the manor. He did a lot of shouting, but he didn’t mean much by it and Willem found it easy to ignore. Willem did most things wrong at first, and usually wrong again until he stumbled upon the right way by accident, for no-one ever explained how to do anything. But after ten days or so he had learned most things, and was shouted at less often. And he liked working in the manor yard; he’d decided to like it anyway, for what else could he do? There were fewer horses than at home, and fewer people too, but the work was no different; a bed for a horse is a bed for a horse, more or less. One thing that was different was that here, he was nobody. There were no expectations and no disappointments. As long as he got his work done, nobody cared what he did or particularly talked to him, and all of that was unexpectedly wonderful, like fresh air and an open sky.

  ​“Willem!”

  ​And there were as many birds here as anywhere. Joy the peacock stuck his beautiful head round the open horse-house door.

  ​“You shouldn’t be here, should you?” Willem asked him, as the peacock dragged his tail through the messed-up bed, messing it up further.

  ​“Why not?” Joy asked. “I wanted to talk to you and this is where you are.”

  ​“I’m working.”

  ​“But I’m upset!”

  ​The pigeons from home came to the manor from time to time and there were always plenty of martins and magpies about, but Willem’s favourite person to talk to was Joy the peacock. Talking to him made Willem forget how much he missed Gilly and Garnet the ganders.

  ​“All right. What’s the matter?” Willem asked, settling awkwardly down into the straw.

  ​“Well, I want to know all about her but you won’t tell me!”

  ​“All about who?” Willem asked.

  ​“Your lover,” said Joy. “I told you about Ramora for hours and hours yesterday didn’t I? And it came to me that you didn’t say a word about your sweetheart, and that’s not fair!”

  ​Willem laughed. “I don’t have one,” he said.

  ​“Oh yes you do,” said the peacock. “Don’t lie, it’ll make you ugly. You’re not happy all the time and that’s because she’s there and you’re here. I can always tell these kinds of things. Ask anyone! Now you’re thinking about her, I can tell that too. So what is she like? Does she love you?”

  ​Willem was thinking about Amber. He had been ever since he had asked the peacock who he meant by her. “I suppose she does,” he admitted. “But it’s not like… I’ve known her all my life. We were born on the same day.”

  ​“That’s romantic!” Joy exclaimed. “Is she as beautiful as Ramora?”

  ​“She’s very beautiful,” Willem said. “And she’s brave and strong. She can do magic too.”

  ​“Like you. So you’re perfect for each other!”

  ​Willem laughed and shook his head. “I’ll never be good enough for Amber. You see…”

  ​“What’s he saying?” Dariel asked.

  ​And Willem scrambled up and brushed away straw guiltily. Dariel stood leaning on the doorframe, silhouetted against the sun, and Willem hadn’t noticed he was there. He might have been there for ages.

  ​“Come on,” Dariel said. “I need fast horses. And you; you’re coming with me.”

  ​Willem swallowed. There was no point saying that he was supposed to be making beds for visiting horses, and a list of other things besides. You didn’t argue with Lord Dariel. You didn’t even talk to him, Willem had found, not if you were only somebody who worked in the yard.

  Willem wondered whether Grider was going to shout at him when he got back. He wondered if he would rather be doing the beds and the feeds and grooming horses, or if he preferred galloping through the country on Arrelottolyrian. He wasn’t sure. And it didn’t matter anyway, since he had no choice. Arrelottolyrian was a well-mannered horse most of the time, but he’d been cooped up in his house and not ridden for days and was beyond excited to be let out finally and to be galloping free, bouncing and bucking in his exuberance. It was hard for the horse to remember, Willem suspected as he hung on grimly, that he had a rider at all.

  ​But to get away from grinding routine was a thing, and they didn’t gallop the whole time. They travelled though lands Willem had never seen, where there were types of birds that were strange to him; the flash of a green-backed woodpecker; some kind of hawk eyeing its prey from far above. Shadows lengthened. Dariel rode ahead the whole time without once looking back, or ever saying a word until he turned his horse under the edge of a wood next to a stream and slithered wearily down from its back. Willem stopped too, and stared.

  ​“You look after the horses,” Dariel said. “I’ll make a fire.”

  ​Willem had loaded both horses with packs when he saddled them back in the yard. He hadn’t thought to wonder what was in those packs, but he did now, for it was beginning to fall dark and they were nowhere near town.

  ​“Where are we going?” he asked, after he had taken off harness and rubbed the horses down.

  ​“Oh God, anywhere!” Dariel said. He had found fuel, made a fire, and he sat beside it now, on a blanket, poking sticks and frowning into the flames. “There’s food in one of those bags. I’m starving.”

  ​Willem brought the bags nearer to the fire and Dariel rummaged for something to eat, found a large pasty and broke it in two, throwing a piece to Willem.

  ​“Don’t just stand there,” Dariel said, in his commanding, kestrel tone. “Come and sit down. It’s cold enough isn’t it? Come and tell me what Joy was saying. I’ve always wondered what he might have to say if he could talk.”

  ​Willem found a blanket to wrap round himself and sat, trying to think out what to say. A direct question wasn’t so difficult to answer he supposed. “Yesterday he was telling me about Ramora, his favourite wife.”

  ​“What did he say about her?”

  ​That was more difficult. “It’s hard to say it the way we do, in human language I mean.”

  ​“Have some wine then, that should help.” Dariel passed Willem the leather bottle he’d been drinking from himself.

  ​Willem had never had wine. He’d drunk beer before and didn’t like it. But he could hardly refuse.

  ​“What Joy says about Ramora is more like a song or a story than just a description. It’s about how beautiful she is, and how her beauty is part of the world, so that loving her is like loving everything. She makes her beauty, he says. The colours in her feathers are made from her soul and her ideas, something you can lose yourself in and become one with…” It was useless trying to explain it. Willem fell silent.

  ​“And what was he telling you today?” Dariel prompted.

  ​“Today he was asking me about my… friend. But I don’t have one. Well, not really.”

  ​Dariel laughed and lay down to make himself more comfortable. “And long may you keep it that way,” he said. “If only it were that easy for me!” He sat up suddenly and took the bottle back from Willem, who had hardly drunk any of it anyway. “I’ve forgotten your name. What is it again?”

  ​“Willem.”

  ​“That’s right,” Dariel said, nodding. “Do you know where I’ve been all this time, all these years, Willem?” he asked.

  ​“No, I don’t…”

  ​“Why would you? I like you, you know. You can do magic! Last year I was in a place where eve
ryone, well not everyone, but plenty of them, was doing magic all the time. There was a woman there who could make pictures out of fire, moving pictures that told stories. And there was another one who they said could fix broken hearts, if you believe in any of that nonsense. I don’t know if I do. I’ve been to lots of places, travelled over the sea to get to most of them, and that’s a thing you can’t imagine until you see it. I’ve seen the place peacocks come from, where there are fields of them flying around and sitting in all the trees. Not just blue ones either; they come in all kinds of colours. And it’s hot there, like the hottest summer day, or even hotter, like the inside of an oven all the year round. I’m sorry. I don’t suppose you’re interested in any of this.”

  ​Willem had taken a few sips of the wine and it had made him feel strangely warm and sleepy, but Dariel had been drinking continuously and he was drunk.

  ​“They sent me away, you see, when I was young, like you. How old are you?”

  ​“Seventeen,” said Willem.

  ​“I was younger than that, just a boy. I travelled all around the world and now I’m back and I’m a man!” Dariel raised his arm in a salute and laughed so hard he fell over.

  ​“Look at the stars. Look! There’s an unfathomable universe up there, unimaginable. But you wanted to know where we’re going, didn’t you? It’s not very interesting, I’m afraid. I have to go to Taron’s Town to see a fellow about some land, and you’re coming with me because I can’t be trusted to go anywhere on my own. I was supposed to go with Stem, but I bargained for you instead.” He laughed some more. “We’ll be away for two days at the most. Two blessed days, and then I must return to my fate, a fate worse than death I might add.”

  ​“What do you mean?” Willem asked, if only because Dariel seemed to want him to.

  ​“Oh, well you see, they send you off to see the world, to open your mind to all the wonders out there and then they fetch you back and expect you to spend the rest of your days sitting indoors in the dark filling out ledgers. And they make you marry as well. That’s what she’s doing right now, my mother. Inviting a train of insipid uglies to visit until I find one I can tolerate. All of them are made of sackcloth and filled with sawdust. You’re lucky, you know. I wish I could make magic! And I don’t suppose anyone expects you to ever get married at all.”

  ​Willem had never heard anyone talk this way before, in such a peculiar mixture of humour and despair. It made him feel a creeping cold, and anyway, the fire was beginning to die down. “I’ll fetch some more wood,” he said getting up, taking one step away out of the light and suddenly shivering. He heard an owl hooting somewhere, out in the wood; a joyful sound.

  ​“I didn’t mean to scare you away,” Dariel called after him.

  For the rest of the two days Lord Dariel barely spoke, and Willem did not speak at all. When he returned with the firewood, Willem had found Dariel fast asleep, and when the young lord woke the next morning he was sick and grey. Willem idled his time in Taron’s town holding the horses and talking to some geese who knew Solie’s gaggle; it seemed all geese knew each other.

  ​“Is old Garnet still alive?” one of the geese enquired. “He must be forty-five years if he’s a day!”

  ​Dariel said nothing of his business in town and Willem did not ask but just guided Arrelottolyrian to fall in step behind Arrelashantia, all the way home, or to where Willem supposed home was now.

  ​Willem went to lead the horses away, but Dariel caught his arm.

  ​“You’re a good listener Willem,” Dariel said. “But you shouldn’t take notice of everything you hear.” And his smiled twitched as he turned to head back to the manor house.

  Chapter Eleven: Magic

  Mayryth danced through the meadow like a spirit. “Arrelestravandias is here!” she said.

  ​Winter had come, and the cold seemed to be in Amber’s heart as well as in the air and the earth, for she could not shake it. She rode the white mare out of desperation; she was not supposed to ride her, as Mayryth was in foal and would be every year. She was different from most of the other horses, those bred to be strong and brave. Mayryth stepped finer and lighter than any, like a piece of thistledown, but she no longer walked in heaven. It hadn’t even taken very long for her to fall to earth. Amber could only remember, or try to remember how it had felt in those early days when she had been immersed with the mare in the wonder of a different world. It was as if the two of them had been under a spell. But Amber could not bear to think of it that way. It had not been a spell. It had been the real world. This one is the fallacy, she told herself, but every time she rode the white mare that other world seemed further away.

  ​“Arrelestravandias!” Mayryth called.

  ​“My daughter!” Arrelestravandias replied as he cantered out of the trees.

  ​“She’s not your daughter,” Amber growled.

  ​“I feel as though she is,” he said. “She is young and I am old. And I love her.”

  ​Mayryth was young. She wanted to play, delicately stepping towards the stallion and then backing away, enticing him to chase her, seeming to have forgotten everything about her old life entirely. Amber stood up on the mare’s back and leapt over to Arrelestravandias instead, hugging him and burying her face in his mane, absorbing his warmth. “I’ve missed you,” she said. “Where have you been?”

  ​“It would take too long to tell you,” the horse replied. Arrelestravandias was allowed to wander the moors freely these days, and he was sometimes gone for days at a time, but he always came back to see his beloved sons and daughters, and especially Mayryth, his new favourite. “You never stay still long enough to have a proper conversation any more.”

  ​And Amber laughed because it was true.

  ​“Anyway, you will be gone from this place soon enough.”

  ​“How do you know that?” There was a sharp wind blowing the last of the leaves from the trees and Amber felt it suddenly.

  ​“Don’t know,” said the horse. “But it feels strong enough to be true.”

  ​“Arrelestravandias, you won’t catch me now!” said Mayryth. She darted away into the wind, and Arrelestravandias sprang off after her with all the power and joy he had in him, leaving Amber’s breath behind, but taking her heart and her soul, for the time being anyway.

  Fennel, the little dun colt, Mayryth’s son, threw out a piercing whinny, thundering to meet them on his neat little feet. He never said much to Amber, not yet; he was shy.

  ​“He’ll be a good horse that one,” Jessa said. “He’s like her,” she nodded at Mayryth. “I can see why you want to waste your time with her.”

  ​Those last words were biting, they were meant to be. Amber had given away half the morning riding Mayryth, riding Arrelestravandias too, which was completely forbidden. But Amber didn’t care what Jessa thought; Jessa knew nothing. “I was out checking the outliers,” she said, lifting her chin.

  ​“All right, I know. You do what you want Amber, just like you always have.”

  ​“I work hard!” Amber said. And it could not be denied.

  ​“I said all right,” said Jessa, sighing. “I don’t want to fight with you. Anyway, listen. Your mother was here this morning, looking for you.” Jessa wasn’t angry, Amber realised. She looked worried instead. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw Solie; she’s got thinner. You’d better go and see what she wants. She wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

  “How many birds can you call?” the man riding Arrelashantia asked Willem.

  ​Willem didn’t know what to say. He had learned that the best thing with these people, these lords and ladies, was to say as close to nothing as was possible. But to refuse to answer a question was wrong too. The problem was, he didn’t know what the man meant. “I can call all of them,” he said hesitantly, “but they won’t all come.”

  ​“Isn’t he just a falconer?” The man turned to Dariel instead, since Willem was so little use.

  ​There were four men.
They seemed to be lords, like Dariel, but one or two of them might have been important servants. It was hard to tell. The one asking the questions was large, solid like a wall, with thin brown hair and little eyes that squinted.

  ​Dariel laughed. “He isn’t a falconer Marl, you idiot. He doesn’t have a falcon, does he? He’s just a horse-house boy, but he can do magic. I told you.”

  ​“Am I supposed to care?”

  ​“Can’t we go back?” another of them asked. “We’ve come miles, it’s freezing, and it looks like rain I reckon.”

  ​Dariel groaned. “You people are useless,” he said. “Willem, call birds. Call all of them, why not?”

  ​Willem had been happy enough trotting along with Dariel and his fine company, riding Dortea, left behind most of the time while the men galloped through the woods on Dariel’s wonderful horses. When he bothered to look, he could see that those men weren’t as impressed as Dariel wanted them to be, so now it was Willem’s turn. He was supposed to show them magic.

  ​Dariel didn’t know what he was asking. Calling all the birds wasn’t something you could do just because you felt like it; you were supposed to have a reason. Willem didn’t know how he knew that, he just did. He had called all the birds three times in his life before, and could not clearly remember what happened when he did.

  ​“Willem!” Dariel commanded.

  ​Willem called all the birds. They did not all come, like he’d said they wouldn’t, but many did; thousands, fast and fierce. They fought their way to him from all directions, all sizes and shapes of them, filling the air with their sharp faces and feet and their wild wings. Willem couldn’t help laughing as those fine men found no room for themselves in the spaces left between, but mostly because of the birds, their earth-shattering desire to be with him and his to be with them.

  ​The horses panicked and bolted, even steady Dortea threw her rider off and whisked away. Willem did not notice. He seemed unable to notice anything, or to think or to move. He lay where he had fallen under the impossible weight of all that weightlessness and watched the light fade into flying feathers.